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20 Feb 2011 16:50

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World: Tunisia doesn’t know if Ben Ali is dead. A little help, Saudis?

  • issue For quite obvious reasons, Tunisia wants to extradite former president  Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from Saudi Arabia to force him to stand trial. Many protesters are out in the streets asking for the same thing.
  • complication Tunisia doesn’t know whether Ben Ali is dead or not, so it had to send a note to Saudi Arabia asking about “the possibility of his death” or possible illness, and for his return if he’s healthy. Odd. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 16:32

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World: Update on Libya: What’s currently happening in the country?

  • There’s a lot going on here, and there is much to parse. There isn’t a clear picture of the death toll in the country, with Human Rights Watch saying that at least 173 people have died in the violence, while other tallies have been much higher. Word is even spreading that some of the protests have shown up outside of Gaddafi’s stronghold of Tripoli. But none of it is as bad as it’s been in Benghazi. “It’s like a guerrilla war,” one female resident of Benghazi said of the violence. “There is a battle going on, and sometimes one part is controlled by the protesters, and sometimes other parts are. There are corpses in the street.” More items of interest:
  • one Reuters is reporting – but cannot independently confirm due to the limits on free speech in the country – that Libya’s hold on Benghazi has weakened to the point where protesters mostly control the streets.
  • two The Arab League’s permanent Libyan representative, Abdel Moneim al-Honi, has resigned in protest of the actions taking place in his home country.  “I am joining the ranks of the revolution,” Honi said.
  • three The BBC’s Jon Williams talks about the hard road for journalists covering Libya this weekend: “When we’re not on the ground, we have to work twice as hard to make sure that we’re telling all sides of the story.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 12:55

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World: A girl named “Facebook”: Egyptian family shows their gratitude

  • ‘Facebook’ received many gifts from the youth who were overjoyed by her arrival and the new name. A name [Facebook] that shocked the entire world.
  • An article from Al-Ahram • Revealing that an Egyptian family had named their newborn girl “Facebook.” We’re guessing that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t expect this to happen when he was sitting around his dorm room, trying to think up an elaborate way to meet girls and screw over the Winklevi. Which goes against the company’s whole stay-out-of-this-mess mantra. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 11:32

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World: China quickly quashes modest “Jasmine” protests of its own

  • 100+ Chinese protesters have been arrested by the government in the wake of an anonymous call for protests
  • 13 number of cities where the protests were expected; police have been out in full force in each of them
  • no China won’t let people talk about “Jasmine” online, and protest discussion has been prevented source
  • » China doesn’t screw around: The pro-democracy “Jasmine Revolution” protests, inspired by the situations in the Middle East, haven’t drawn very large crowds. But China’s elaborate and sophisticated response has basically been designed to discourage dissent against the state, making the road the anonymous protesters took much harder than, say, in Egypt.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Feb 2011 11:03

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World: Ugandan election results favor dude already in office for 25 years

  • 68% the share of votes Yoweri Museveni, in office 25 years, got in Uganda
  • 26% the share of votes his closest rival, Kizza Besigye, received
  • 6% the share of votes everyone else received in the election source
  • » The opposition says it’s “illegitimate”: Besigye’s Inter-Party Cooperation is one of a couple of groups who have thrown up question marks about the electoral results. European Union observers, for example, say the elections are “marred by avoidable and logistical failures, which led to an unacceptable number of Ugandan citizens being disenfranchised.” A group of African-based election observers gave a statement claiming, however, that the election was “conducted in conformity with minimum international benchmarks for free elections.” Hopefully this doesn’t turn into the kind of mess that has marred the Ivory Coast over the last few months.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Feb 2011 22:48

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Tech: Google wants to improve search results by asking your friends

  • Question of the day: Do your friends make your search results better? A couple of days ago, when we were worried about Glenn Beck, Google announced an update to their social search that makes it easier to integrate your friend’s social streams from multiple networks into Google’s search results. If your friends suck and offer terrible advice, you need new friends. Which is also why you shouldn’t use this. But even if their advice is sound, does this cross a privacy line? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Feb 2011 22:30

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Politics: Timothy Geithner on GOP’s spending diet plan: This will hurt jobs

  • In our judgment, the continuing opposition…in the House would undermine and damage our capacity to create jobs and expand the economy.
  • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner • Claiming that the GOP’s spending-cut-heavy plan threatens to severely hurt job creation. Geithner’s advice? Strengthen the economic recovery, then focus on deficit-cutting. “I am very confident that the Democrats and the Republicans will come together on a program to not just reduce spending but reduce long-term deficits,” he continued. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink
 

19 Feb 2011 21:23

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U.S.: Are the Tea Partiers in Madison really that big a deal, anyway?

  • So how many Tea Partiers went to Madison today? While these crowds look reasonably large in size, they don’t appear to hold a candle to the 40,000+ union protesters going around Madison today. These arial shots seem to suggest much smaller crowds of Tea Partiers than pro-union folks. But guess which ones CNN decided to cover today? Take a guess. (photo from Americans for Prosperity’s Flickr stream) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Feb 2011 16:54

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World: Somali pirates have more than enough hostages to fill a Starbucks

  • 30 ships are currently being held by Somali pirates
  • 660 people are being held for ransom as we type
  • four U.S. citizens were captured on Friday source
  • » The latest incident: The people currently being held for hostage in the waters around Somalia were on a yacht called Quest, and included a couple known for traveling the world via yacht and handing out bibles to anyone who would take them on their journeys. If Americans get involved with this, they could damage the Somali’s business model of pilfering money from shipping and insurance companies. Because the U.S. won’t put up with this crap.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Feb 2011 16:32

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World: Libyan violence: The painful scenes journalists can’t directly report

  • Many of the dead and the injured are relatives of doctors here. They are crying, and I keep telling them to please stand up and help us.
  • A Libyan medical official • Describing the scene at a poorly-equipped hospital in the country. The official reported fifteen dead. As painful as this quote is, this one is nearly as gut-wrenching: “The blood of our martyrs is still leaking from coffins over the shoulders of the mourners,” said a protester in Benghazi, the epicenter of the current crisis, in the wake of an attack on protesters who were mourning during a funeral. Libya is a hard country to get accurate information from, because journalists are not allowed to freely work in the country. In other words, much of this information is coming from phone calls and informants and can’t be independently confirmed. Libyan protesters are facing a very tough road; stand with them. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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